KL NEWS NETWORK

SRINAGAR

The outgoing chief secretary Iqbal Khanday at his office inside Secretariat.
The outgoing chief secretary Iqbal Khanday at his office inside Secretariat.

Chief Secretary Iqbal Khanday has announced his decision to stay absent from duty because he has not followed the procedure that is fundamental to the voluntary retirement, a top PDP minister said.

“It is not voluntary retirement, it is voluntary disappearance,” the minister said. “For voluntary retirement, there has to be a notice which is missing in this case.” The normal process is that he had to send his papers that would be accepted by the cabinet and eventually sent to the central government which has the powers to accept or reject it.

“In this situation, what he has done is that he will either be on leave for three months or simply absent from duty,” the minister said. He termed the Kashmir Life earlier dispatch as “the epitaph” of IAS officer insisting that while he was not third Kashmiri Muslim to be Chief Secretary, he was one of the few direct IAS recruits to get the top position.

The minister said Khanday has apparently invoked some morality for doing what he has done but has forgotten the disasters he presided over. “Where was his morality as Chief Secretary when he appeared after more than 20 days to brief the media after September 2014 floods,” the minister said. “Now when he has only three months left of his service he is trying to become a martyr.”

Khanday, it may be recalled here, has submitted his papers to the government Monday noon seeking voluntary retirement. The immediate reason was him being sidelined in the last cabinet meeting.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here